I'm somewhat socially inept. Slide me between two strangers at any light-hearted jamboree and I'll either rock awkwardly and silently on my heels, or come out with a stone-cold conversation-killer like, "This room's quite rectangular, isn't it?" I glide through the social whirl with all the elegance of a dog in high heels

Often the ideas in the show start out as ideas that make you laugh - outrageous "what if" ideas. I wanted an outlet for doing those.

I'm trying to think overall. Some of our stories [Black Mirror], I think you're right in that they don't tend to have a message.

I was more aware initially of shows like Tales of the Unexpected. And the BBC used to put on a lot of one-off, bizarre television plays.

In the U.K. I'm probably better known as a comedy writer - or certainly that's my background is in writing comedy.

Your grades are not your destiny: they're just letters and numbers which rate how well you performed in one artificial arena, once.

There's something I find very satisfying about a nice ironic twist.